Sunday, January 26, 2014

Snow Day

On Saturday Laura and I knew we weren't going to attempt to leave the house - our street never even got plowed. We were, however, pretty productive around the house. We re-racked our homemade Cabernet Sauvignon, brewed a Dortmunder Lager beer, made pizza from scratch(dough & sauce), as well as all the normal weekend chores(shovelling cleaning, laundry etc). I've written before about how I enjoy the homebrewing process much like I enjoy developing my own film(I guess this goes for baking too). There are lots of similarities - temperature control, adding the right ingredients at the right time, agitations etc - and coming away with something made with your own two hands. I also got a little work done on my darkroom - which will bring more analogies(but more on that soon).

Brewing Supplies
This is our re-racked Cabernet - the heating belt is around it to keep the temperature up over 70 degrees. (We keep our house far to cold for regular wine fermenting temps.) We did taste a little bit off the bottom of the primary fermenter - it was surprisingly decent for a 7 day old wine.
This is a wort chiller I made to help cool down the beer after the boil.
Hydrometer (measures the alcohol) and airlock.
Laura brewing the Dortmunder Lager.
I'll have some update posts on these two brews as they progress.